Day 18 -- DMCA

As we mentioned briefly yesterday -- we should never forget that Adobe
used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to have a Russian programmer, Dmitry Sklyarov, arrested and
imprisoned. His "crime"? Distributing a product designed to remove
locks from eBooks so that they could be fully used like regular books.

This year, we've seen an attempt by Canada to introduce its own DMCA,
with harsher penalties than the draconian US law. Michael Geist, law
professor at the University of Ottawa states, the education provisions
"[t]urn librarians into locksmiths" by requiring that they expire
their digital materials after no more than five days.

One DRM activist, Zane writes on our
blog "The DMCA does not protect creators. These overstepping boundaries are a burden to
creativity, expression, culture, innovation, and the consumer."